In an emotional conversation with America's highest-ranking doctor, Vivek Murthy, the U.S.

Surgeon General wears his heart on his sleeve, talking about his own struggles with loneliness.

He came to London for the World Happiness Summit this week, and his timing couldn't be better.

The Global Mind Project claims the UK is the second most unhappy country in the world.

Meanwhile, in America, a new report says that for the first time, young people there, between 15 and 24, aren't as happy as their older peers.

Dr. Murthy says social media silos and addictive smartphones are making us more anxious and depressed than ever, and he wants lawmakers to step up now.

Surgeon General, welcome to the program.

Thank you so much.

You are in England.

I mean, perhaps people would be surprised to know that you're here for a happiness summit.

In fact, we're talking on International Happiness Day.

Why?

Why is it needed?

What is the problem with the deficit of happiness?

Well, the problem is that, you know, happiness is intrinsically linked to health.

You know, when we are not feeling happy, when we're not feeling fulfilled in our lives, that affects how we show up at work, at school, in our communities, but it also ultimately has an impact on our physical health.

We've now learned over the years that there's a strong connection between our mind and our body, how we feel and how we are.

And the more we've learned about that, we've learned, for example, that issues like loneliness and isolation have tremendous effects in increasing the risk for both depression and anxiety, but also for heart disease, for dementia, and for premature death.

Are you surprised?

And I know that you are Yorkshire-born.

In other words, you are a Yorkshire lad, let's say.

Are you surprised that this country, I mean, you know, pretty close to top of the tables in the OECD nations, is the second most unhappy, depressed country in the world?

Only Uzbekistan has it worse.

We're just gonna play a couple of soundbites.

I think a lot of people can be taken down by the weather, but coming from the U.S., from California to here, I love it, I made a choice to move here.

People are just getting more and more downbeat by the fact that they're not being helped by the government, market forces, et cetera, and I think it just, yeah, it can be really difficult.

We're not that unhappy.

I think the older generation is soon gonna be happier than the younger generation.

Are you surprised?

Well, I'm deeply concerned, but I think one of the key lessons from this is that economic prosperity alone is not the key to happiness, and in fact, what we are seeing is that in many countries, which are increasingly modernizing in terms of their economy, their culture, et cetera, we're actually seeing that unhappiness is growing, and I think that's coming for a few different reasons.

One of them is because we are actually pulling further and further apart from one another.

With the benefits and efficiencies of modern technology and ways of life, we actually have fewer friends that we trust, we have fewer relationships we can rely on, and that is a direct impact on our happiness and well-being.

The other challenge, though, is I think technology has been a mixed blessing for us, and I think particularly when it comes to young people, the impact of social media on their mental health has often been quite negative, which is why last year, I issued a Surgeon General's advisory on social media and youth mental health to point out the fact that when young people are using social media, as they often are, for more than three hours a day, they double their risk of anxiety and depression symptoms.

You have, in fact, gone even further, comparing social media and the tech companies to 20th century car giants, which have produced vehicles without seatbelts and airbags until legislation mandated it.

What's happening in social media is the equivalent of having children in cars that have no safety features and driving on roads with no speed limits, no traffic lights, no rules whatsoever, and we're telling them, you know what, do your best, figure it out, it's insane.

Yeah, that is what we've done to our children.

It's we've put them in unsafe, untenable environments, and we're hoping for the best.

And you know who else we've placed a burden on?

Our parents.

Parents all across the world are trying to figure out how to manage social media for their kids.

These platforms are rapidly evolving.

Many parents never grew up with them, and what they are finding is that their kids are often exposed to extraordinary harms, whether that's violence and sexual content, whether it's content generated by the algorithm that in some cases tells them to harm themselves.

And the experience itself, many young people tell me, has led them to often feel worse about themselves and about their friendships, yet they feel they can't get off of it because the features that are built in are meant to maximize how much time we all spend on them, and that is a profound source of concern for me as a doctor as I watch the profound and disturbing health effects on our kids.

Can I ask you a personal question?

Yes.

Did you have personal experience as a child with any kind of loneliness that informs your, you know, your zeal for this?

I did, Christiane.

I struggled a lot with loneliness as a child.

I was shy.

I was introverted.

I didn't have a lot of people who were from similar cultural backgrounds or, you know, immigrant backgrounds, and I ended up feeling quite different and left out a lot.

And that was really hard, but what was particularly hard for me, Christiane, was the shame that came with that.

I came to believe as a kid that something was wrong with me.

That's why I was lonely and something was broken.

Maybe I wasn't likable.

Maybe I wasn't lovable.

And even though my parents loved me unconditionally, Christiane, I never told them about these struggles because I felt ashamed.

I have felt this as an adult at times, too, these struggles with loneliness.

After my first stint as Surgeon General, in fact, I was left without a work community.

I had largely neglected my friends and family as I allowed myself to get inundated with my work, and I bore the consequence of that later when I felt profoundly alone and lost.

And I think a lot of people go through these struggles.

We don't talk about them often, but they're deep, they're profound, and they're part of the human experience.

If you experience loneliness from time to time, it's one thing.

If you reconnect with people, that loneliness goes away.

It's when it's prolonged, when it's deep, that's when it starts to have impacts on our health and well-being.

And if we can just talk more openly about this, if we can recognize the power of showing up in each other's lives, of checking on friends, of putting 10 minutes aside each day to reach out to people we care about, we can make a big difference in how connected we are.

That's one aspect of the loneliness.

The other aspect, as you said, is the social media.

And you, I was staggered to read that you'd gone to several universities in the United States, and where there should be chatter and connection, there was total silence.

Yes, this is one of the most striking things on the university tour that I did in the United States, was just the volume on the campuses and in the dining halls was much lower.

I remember when I was in university, that the loudest place on campus was actually the dining hall.

We would all finish our classes, come there, and everyone wanted to talk, talk, talk, and catch up.

But not only is it quieter there because people aren't talking, they're on their devices.

They ask you, how are we supposed to even meet people and have conversation?

That's right, because it feels intrusive, they would say, to approach somebody when they've got their earbuds in, when they're looking at their phone.

And the harder, the less you do it, the harder it gets, because our social muscle has to be built over time.

If we don't exercise it, meaning if we don't interact with other people, start conversations, engage in person, that muscle becomes weaker, and in-person interaction becomes harder and harder.

And that's what we're seeing with our kids.

And so, of course, now everybody thinks AI is going to be the replacement for romance, not just dating apps, but actual robots and things.

What's your view on that?

I think it can be tempting and easy to look at AI as a panacea for all ills, and it might be easier and more convenient to turn to a chatbot than to go out and build a relationship.

But these are fundamentally different.

There is no replacement for in-person human connection.

It's how we were evolved over thousands of years.

We were wired, hardwired, to connect with one another.

And we've got to intentionally build that back into our life now because it is slipping away.

Vivek Murthy, thank you very much for being with us.

Thanks so much, Christiane.

Good to be with you.